Loop
by CandiFloss
Summary: "He smiles, thanking his lucky stars that he loops his 'g's." How a tiny handwriting quirk led to the love story he thought he'd never have. Dramione, warfic, one-shot.


_**A/N: **Continued from HBP; no correlation with DH. _

_Summary: In a world ravaged by war, Hermione finds solace in a scap of yellowed parchment warning of an impending Death Eater attack. Her life changes forever when she realizes that Draco Malfoy is its author._

**_*disclaimer*_ **_I own nothing... :_(_

**~.~**

**LOOP**

**~.~**

The note is scrawled on an aged, curling piece of yellowed parchment, jaggedly torn from a longer scroll. It's scribbled hurriedly in a swooping, indistinct hand that has carefully disguised any distinguishing handwriting quirks so as to eliminate the possibility of identification. On the upper left corner, a blot has bled rivulets of watery ink into the creases of the paper, indicating that the author hesitated for a brief stutter in time before marrying quill to parchment.

Wearily, Hermione pushes back the disobedient wisps of frizz tumbling from her messy knot out of her face and squints again, for what seems like the millionth time, at the scrap.

_Tomorrow at 10. King's Cross. Be ready. _

Hardly a letter. Hardly a note. Hardly even a warning.

_What_ is tomorrow at ten? _What_ are they supposed to be ready for? An ambush of some sort, she assumes; tomorrow is, after all, the infamous September 1st, or the first day of Hogwarts. How typical, how cowardly, to plan an attack in the midst of hundreds of innocent children – perhaps _on_ hundreds of innocent children – when they had nothing to do with the war. When they were the only souls with hearts untainted from the evils permeating the atmosphere, with minds uncorrupted with memories of horror and destruction, with sleep undisturbed by vivid nightmares so real you wake up with the metallic tang of blood lingering on your tongue.

She sighs and lays the note on the splintered table surface, a clot budding in the back of her throat. It's late, and she's faint, and there's nothing she can do anyway. Harry and Ron have already informed Headquarters about the ambush, and a counter-attack from the depleted stock of Order members is set up in anticipation; she only hopes it will be enough.

She's so tired. So, so tired. And with each day that passes, the fatigue sticks a little closer to her, like static fizz in a woolen scarf, pricking and jabbing. Because no matter how much she studies, no matter what she looks up … people still die.

People still die and she can't save them. She can't help. For all her brains, for all her talk, she's powerless in the face of so much evil, so much tragedy, so much chaos. She's not used to losing her tight grip on control, and she doesn't like it. It used to be that the only things she couldn't control in life were her hair, her broom, and her friends. But now….

No, she doesn't like it at all.

There is no money for electricity, just as there is no money for many things she previously had – running water, clean bed sheets, new parchment and fresh ink. An ancient lamp hangs precariously from rusty nails that are tilted crookedly into the ceiling, scattering fluttering bursts of luminance irregularly in the murky darkness. There's something brokenly beautiful about the dim golden glow this lamp bestows upon the night, something that whispers of hope and faith and the promise of tomorrow.

But then the candle flickers, whimpers, and dies, and the room is submerged into shadow.

Groaning in frustration, Hermione rises heavily and gropes blindly in the blackness, faintly surprised when she's able to find a match and re-light the lamp. She's standing a few feet away from the table, absently staring at the note while chewing mercilessly on the already-tender flesh inside her cheek and pondering the merits of actually sleeping for once, when it suddenly hits her.

The 'g'. Despite the author's best efforts to mask his handwriting, she can see it. She can see it and it stops her heart.

She can see it and it mends her heart.

_King's Cross. _

A tiny loop, not even a significant curl, following the inky tail of the letter and folding back on itself.

A tiny loop that she would recognize anywhere.

A tiny loop that makes all the difference.

...

_Hogwarts, Fourth Year: A Lifetime Ago _

"_What the hell, Granger?" Draco Malfoy, a critical pout twisting his lips, scrutinized the scroll of parchment in his hand. "What makes you think that this is right?" _

_ Hermione rolled her eyes and snatched the paper away from him, compulsively smoothening down its edges as she did so. "It's right because I know it is. If you have a problem, you can talk to McGonagall about switching partners." _

_ He scoffed disbelievingly and leaned back against the wooden panes of his chair. "Believe me, I would if I could, but in case you haven't noticed, the old bat's not exactly president of my fan club." _

_ Smiling back at him smugly, Hermione retorted, "So I guess you're stuck with it, then." _

_ "Stuck with a Transfiguration essay riddled with errors and a stubborn brat as my partner, you mean. Isn't that just the story of my life?" Scowling, Draco stood and kicked the chair back, gathering his belongings with a look of perpetual dissatisfaction still melded on his aristocratic features. "I guess you won't be needing me, then." _

_ "I guess not." Hermione shot him a triumphant look, mentally tallying the scoreboard for today. Granger: 1; Malfoy: zip. _

_ Her snide grin itching at his pride, Draco deigned her one last glower and stalked regally out of the library, leaving the distinct, earthy scent of oak trees in his wake. _

_ Later that night, however, when the throngs of homework-laden students had trudged off to their respective common rooms and the library was close to empty, he came back. _

_ Marching up to the spot where she was curled on a cushion, her legs tucked primly underneath her and a tattered paperback in her hand, he thrust a lengthy scroll at her disdainfully. "There," he spat, his eyes narrowed to bright shards of silver. "In case you want to know how to do it right." _

_ Hermione remained silent, not content to grant him the satisfaction of a response. After a moment of waiting, he snorted and left, irritation plastered on his face. _

_ Long after he was gone, when the black of the night melted into the soft burgeoning of day and she had finished her book and started another, Hermione picked up his essay, almost absently. She intended to dismiss it after a cursory scanning, but instead found herself frowning at the pages, pursing her lips in contemplation. _

_ That day, she turned in his essay instead of hers._

…_._

_ "An O? You've got to be joking. Your piece of rubbish got an O?" Draco, his voice thick with incredulity, stared hard at the grade written in red ink at the top of the paper, almost as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "I know for a _fact _that half your information was outdated, and …" _

_ "It's not my essay," Hermione snapped, tired of his grating tone. "Happy now?" _

_ As understanding dawned on him, Draco's grimace morphed into a smirk. "You turned in mine, didn't you? I knew you had to have some sense." Chortling, he pulled up his assigned seat next to her. "Maybe this'll finally get me into McGonagall's good books …" _

_ Hermione quirked an eyebrow at him. "Or not," she responded glibly. "McGonagall just came by to congratulate me on my ever-improving standard of essay writing." _

_ "She can't think you wrote it!" he blustered, knitting his eyebrows together. "She's seen a dozen of my essays, at least …" _

_ Hermione pulled out the parchment and studied the penmanship, a grin dancing on her lips. "You've got to admit, Malfoy," she chuckled, after a lengthy perusal, "your handwriting is extremely …. how to put this delicately … _feminine_." _

_ A hint of a flush stole over Draco's pale features. "You don't know what you're talking about." _

_She leaned across the desk, shoving the essay in front of him. "Do you see this? Your 'y' actually has a swirl at the end, and your 't' is crossed with a squiggle instead of a line. And this 'g' …." she laughed, "this 'g' is literally looping back on itself. Do you want me to go on?" _

"_Shut it, Granger," he growled, the hard glint in his eyes silencing her bubbling laughter. _

_ Granger: 2; Malfoy: still zip._

_..._

Swallowing the strangled cry that chokes her throat, Hermione grabs the note and runs to Harry's room. Her heart is hammering in her ears, and she can feel the blood rushing to her head. She needed something to believe in, and this could be it.

She could believe in Draco Malfoy.

"Harry!" she gasps, grabbing ahold of the doorframe and steadying her shaking knees. Her friend is hunched over his desk, ostensibly working on a strategy for tomorrow. But a blank paper lies in front of him, and his head is down, clutched in his hands.

He looks the way she feels.

Harry looks up, his disheveled black hair falling limply in his eyes, concealing his famous jagged scar. "Yeah, Mione?" he mutters, turning back to his blank page and staring at it hard as though ink might materialize on its surface.

She strides over to him and yanks him up by his shoulders. He's startled, unused to her aggressiveness. "This note," she says, thrusting it into his clenched fists. "I know who sent it."

He frowns at it, carefully re-examining the aged parchment. "How?"

"The handwriting. I know it's supposed to be disguised, but I can tell – I remember this loop, this loop on the 'g'. Harry, I _know _who sent this!" She's determined to make him see. He has to see.

Harry sighs, and, prying her rigid fingers from his shoulders, sits back down heavily. "Who?" he asks, his tone almost disinterested. He's humoring her, and she knows it.

She pulls up a chair and sits next to him. Trembling fingers paw at the note, a tactile assurance that it's real and she's not crazy for hoping. "It was Malfoy," she whispers, the words struggling to push past her lips. "It _is _Malfoy."

Harry looks at her and his gaze is almost pitying, blatant disbelief evident in his tired eyes. "Why would you think that?"

"I told you, it's the 'g'," she insists, a quaver creeping into her voice nonetheless. "I'm sure of it."

He averts his gaze, and begins, carefully, "I know you want to believe …"

Hermione stands abruptly. "I don't _want _to believe anything; I _know_, Harry," she hisses, her eyes snapping in anger. She's about to leave, knowing it's a lost cause, but the despair in her friend's expression catches her off-guard and she realizes that he's just like her. He's desperate to trust, to have faith in the good, but he's scared to, and she understands that.

She blows out a breath of frustration and takes back her seat. Ignoring his feeble protests, she draws the blank strategy from Harry. Softly, she asks, "Maybe if we station a few people here at the entrance –"

"Who's going to be in the field, then? We don't have enough –"

"Dean, maybe? He and Seamus are back downstairs, we could ask them. If we positioned them here –" she scratches at the paper with a quill she'd snatched from him – "and we could wait here, so if they try to attack us …"

"We'll be there first," he finished, the corners of his mouth twitching into a soft half-smile. "Thank you, Hermione."

In response, she looks into his once-bright green eyes, the gleam that's faded over the years. "It is Malfoy, Harry. I know it's him. Please believe me."

He heaves in a breath and squeezes his eyes shut. "Okay," he murmurs back, and she's taken back to two years ago, when they left their seventh year at Hogwarts to hunt for Horcruxes, fresh-faced and excited for good to prevail.

Because hope, like an uninvited but welcome guest, has crept back into the air again.

* * *

><p>A burst of white light explodes behind her eyelids as a sharp dagger of pain slices into her sides. The faint sentiment of surprise tickles the back of her mind, but it's overwhelmed with the throbbing singe now pulsating throughout her body.<p>

With wide eyes, Hermione presses a hand to her ribs and is shocked when her fingers come away bloody.

She's going to die, isn't she?  
>After all this fighting, believing, hurting, crying, it's going to end like this. A random hit from a random spell shot from the wand of a random hooded Death Eater whose face she can't even see.<p>

There's an irony in there, somewhere, but her brain's too fuzzy to register it. Death has come to her cloaked in his traditional hood in the form of a crazed Voldemort-supporter.

As her vision blurs, her eyes catch hold of another hood, another one of those detestable individuals, leaning over her as blood seeps from the folds of her robes to the cracked pavement below.

Her lashes are fluttering shut, but as she gives in to the blackness, she can swear she hears the tail of a whispered oath from the cloak beside her.

She can swear it hisses, _"Shit, Granger. Shit, no." _

But it doesn't matter, because now she's gone anyway.

* * *

><p>A groggy awareness is tugging at her, seeming to whisper that she needs to get up, and she needs to get up now. There's a battle going on, and there're kids who are going to die if she's not awake to help them, and Harry and Ron are counting on her …<p>

And she can't open her eyes. Damn it, why can't she open her eyes? She's trying, but oblivion, like a siren's seductive song, is flirting with her subconscious. Her eyelids are rough lumps of lead cemented to her face.

Come to think of it, she can't move her feet either, or her arms, or her fingers. Her entire body is hollow, carved out from the inside, and she's suspended in the wafting air between dreams and reality.

Maybe this is death. Maybe this is heaven.

Or maybe it's hell.

And now her head is throbbing again, quivers of pain flitting underneath her eyelids; she's trying to scream but a weight is lodged on her chest, a tower of bricks that tumble a little closer to her heart every time she draws a breath.

Frantic now, she desperately attempts to wriggle her whole body, and she's writhing on the inside but on the outside is as still as the corpse she may well be. This feeling is foreign, this detachment from her own body, this feeling of helplessness, hopelessness that threatens to drown her.

_Come on, move, _she commands herself, but her body, the last thing she could call her own, is betraying her. She's relentless, though, and finally, after what seems like eons of trying – there, there it is! The tiniest hint of a twitch in her pointer finger and her world is balanced again.

Just as she moves her hand, she hears a scuffle from the corner and she knows that she's not alone. So she's not dead. Most likely, whoever cursed her has captured her and is planning on doing those terrible things to her, terrible things that she's read about, heard about, and futilely attempted to heal, but that have never happened to her.

Not yet, anyway.

The movement shocks her into alertness and a pathetic whimper tumbles past her lips. She wishes it back instantly, but it's too late. The person has already heard, has already seen her jerking finger and has already decided what to do to her.

She wants to be brave, but dread, biting and jagged like ice in a bucket, has stolen into her heart.

The person is looming over her now; she can sense their presence. It's touching her now; she's shuddering inwardly at the contact. It's speaking now …. "Granger, are you awake?"

And she stops cowering.

Because she knows that voice. It's as smooth as glass, and just as hard. But the glass has a crack now, an uneven line splitting its icy surface, and, for some reason, she likes it better for that fault.

Hermione stops trying to open her eyes. There's no point now, because she knows what she will see. Steely eyes of hardened wind, a face of planes and angles, hair crafted from the union of sunshine and snow.

"Malfoy," she mumbles, her tongue clumsy in her mouth.

He exhales, but from relief or ire, she can't tell.

She shouldn't notice that his warm breath tickles her cheeks, should she?

"Don't talk, Granger," he says, his cold hands once again pressing into her sides to check her wound. "Just sleep for now. Sleep."

She doesn't want to obey him, but her mind is fogging again. Uselessly, she tries to speak, her mouth gapping open and shut moronically. The words that have never failed her are withering on her lips.

She succumbs to the blackness that claims her.

* * *

><p>This time, it's he who wakes her. Roughly, impatiently.<p>

"Get up," he hisses, his voice low in his throat. "We have to leave – _now._" She notes the wild panic in his eyes, and, almost as an afterthought, realizes that she can see again.

"You're fine," he adds, grabbing her elbow and elevating her to a sitting position. "You healed a few days ago, but I gave you sleeping potion so you wouldn't be in pain. Granger" – that desperation again, the urgency underscoring his words – "get up."

She does, because she can, and because she feels sorry for him.

He still thinks that they have a chance.

Awkwardly, she stands and her knees buckle but he's there, holding her upright. Her bare feet bite into the peeling panels of wood beneath her. "Okay," she murmurs, and, just for a second, she leans into the warmth of him.

But the moment passes and he's pulling out his wand and they're going, whirling and tumbling through a tunnel of wind-tossed black. The invisible ropes constricting her ribs pulls a little harder; she's breathless, panting for air, silent tears streaming down her face from the pain of her injury and apparition combined…

And then it's over, and she's thrown onto the floor of a hovel-like structure, hair spilling chocolate spirals onto the ground around her, death-pale fingers clutching at the fraying strings of carpet beneath her.

Malfoy is beside her, his knees drawn up to his chest and his hair flopping in his face. They're both breathing hard, and the silence between them is thick.

They lie there on the floor for what seems like an eternity, shocked but safe, an unusual combination in their war-torn world.

Finally, she turns her head towards him. Her voice is still hoarse, but she manages to rasp what's been plaguing her mind for the days she's been asleep. "It was you, wasn't it?"

Malfoy snaps his gaze towards her. "What do you mind?"

She sits up, grunting a little when her wound sends stabbing jolts of heat through her stomach. "You sent the note. The warning note."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Granger," Malfoy bites out, an undercurrent of steel infusing his tone. His jaw is set rigidly and a muscle twitches in his jaw.

"You do. It's okay, you don't have to say anything. I just … I wanted to" – the words are a struggle – "to thank you."

He looked hard at her for a long second. His grey eyes are unreadable, but there's some emotion there, roiling somewhere in their impenetrable depths. Emotion of what sort, she still doesn't know.

She closes her eyes and braces herself for the answer to her next question. "Ron and Harry?" She doesn't elaborate. She doesn't need to.

Malfoy nods shortly. "Potter was hurt, but Weasley's fine. They're both alive, if that's what you mean."

"And the kids?"

"Three are dead."

His words are brutal, a punch of electricity coursing through her body. "No," she breathes, but she knows it's the truth. "What happened?"

Malfoy stands, and wipes off the dirt of the floor. "Your little game-plan was flawed, that's all. Try harder next time."

Hot tears prick at her lashes, but she's too prideful to let them fall. Three children … three students, excited for a new year at Hogwarts, the one sanctuary from their bleak surroundings, the one place they could be safe from the ravages of war …

Three kids who died because of her.

Malfoy is still watching her, the same distant expression plastering his features.

How could she have thought he'd changed? One note of warning not does not a bastard unmake. He's still just as unfeeling, just as cruel, as the day he'd branded her a Mudblood in second year.

Hermione blinks the water away from her eyes, dragging a trembling hand through her tangled curls. For the first time, she notices her surroundings. They're in a hut of some sorts, with bruised wooden walls and an earthy clay floor.

Realization suddenly dawns on her. This was all just some elaborate trick, wasn't it? Designed to crush her humiliatingly and decisively. No simple Avada would work for her; she would die a hideous death. "Where are we?" she whispers, fear trickling into her voice. "What are you going to do with me?"

Malfoy sighs exasperatedly. A note of – was that amusement? It looks suspiciously like it – dances in his eyes for the first time. "I was wondering when we'd get to this. Granger, I'm not planning on hurting you. You're clever, you know that I wouldn't invest all that energy in healing you if I just wanted to kill you."

"Then why _did _you do it, Malfoy?" she cries, the reality of the situation slowly overwhelming her. This was Malfoy – the same Malfoy who teased her in school, who bullied Harry, who became a Death Eater at sixteen. How was he possibly the same person who wrote the warning, who nursed her back to health, who saved her from a Death Eater raid? "Why did you save me? Why did you write that note? Are you a Death Eater?"

"_No," _he growls, fury lighting his features. "I haven't been; not for a long time. I can't make you believe me – there's nothing I have to prove it – but I swear, Granger, that's the truth."

She's squinting at him like she can't believe he's really there. "Why did you defect?"

"Mind your own damned business, Granger." Malfoy strides over to the edge of the room, leaning against the wall and looking at her through hooded eyes. "As for where we are – this is my family's warehouse in Hallows Forest. I don't think anyone knows about it, but I can't be sure; if you have a better place in mind, telling me at some point might be nice."

She's not sure she can trust him with Grimauld Place yet, but there's something in his face – some sort of raw honesty – that makes her feel like she has to.

She doesn't have much of a choice, anyway.

Taking his hand – he snaps his head up at her touch, his eyes slightly wide, but relaxes when he understands her motive – she Apparates, the blind hope that she's groping clenching her heart in the darkness.

* * *

><p>"No – <em>no<em>!" Ron is pacing the floor, his freckled cheeks a furious shade of magenta. His whole body is quivering with rage. "Hermione, he's a fucking Death Eater. I don't know what the hell he's told you to make you think any different – "

Exasperated, Hermione holds her friend down by his shoulders. "Ron, he saved us that day at King's Cross! He saved hundreds of children! Those _aren't_ the actions of a Death Eater."

"How the fucking hell do you know that he wrote that note? He's lying through his teeth, the bastard …" Ron curses, sitting heavily, his ragged pants filling the small room.

"He didn't tell me," Hermione explains slowly, the words feeling strange in her mouth. "I know. I knew from the handwriting – "

"The handwriting was _disguised_, Hermione!"

She sighs and sits down next to him. For a few heartbeats, they're silent, and then she whispers, "I was skeptical, too. But he's changed, Ron. He's really changed."

Ron opens his mouth, on the verge of responding, when Malfoy himself stride into the room. His cocky grin has returned to his face after regaining his health, and it now splits his mouth as he drawls, "Talking about me again, Weasley? This obsession of yours is getting quite unhealthy, isn't it?"

If possibly, Ron's face turns even more purple than before. "You little bastard!" he growls, jumping to his feet with his fingers gripping the wand at his belt.

"Stop it!" Hermione shrieks, throwing her hands up to block her friend. "Ron, you're being ridiculous."

"No, Mione," he hisses, his breath coming in short pants to match his heaving chest. "_You _are. And I only hope you realize it before it's too late." With that, he storms out, his robes billowing angrily in his wake.

Hermione sucks in a cold gulp of air, flopping back down on the sofa. She's just so sick of this – it'd taken Harry a week before he trusted Malfoy enough to allow him to stay in the house without him around, and ever since Ron returned from his raid, he's been acting like a lunatic around her.

Malfoy sits across next to her, his silver eyes pointedly narrowing to meet hers. "Well?" he prompts, the low timbers of his voice rippling on her skin. "What more do you want me to do? I've taken the Veritaserum, I've let Potter use Legilimency on me … I honestly don't know what more I can do to prove I'm not, to quote the Weasel, 'traitorous scum'."

Pursing her lips thoughtfully, she looks up. They've gotten – well, not close, exactly, but certainly friendlier than they had been during their Hogwarts years – over the last few weeks, and she hopes that he'll be okay with her asking this. "Malfoy," she starts, slowly, carefully. "Can you tell me now why you defected?"

He rips his eyes away from her, his jaw setting. "I told you, Granger …."

"That it was none of my business, I know. But it would make it so much easier for me to help you if you just tell me."

Malfoy raises his head to meet her gaze for a few tense seconds. He swallows heavily, his throat flexing as he rakes his messy hair back from his forehead. His hard eyes glint harshly into hers, and he says, in a voice so low she has to strain her ears to hear it, "All right."

He draws an unsteady breath and begins, "In sixth year, I was tasked to … to kill Dumbledore. You know that. I failed, and after that, my family became blacklisted. Voldemort settled in the Manor, and we were forced to cater to his every whim. I watched as he did heinous things to people, and I never said a word." His nails bite into his palms with so much force that his knuckles turn a bloodless white. Hoarsely, he whispers again, "I never said a word."

Hermione's shocked, her mouth slack with astonishment. "And that's when you …"

"No," he bites out, the muscles jumping in his jaw. "I wish it was, but it wasn't. I waited. I kept waiting; while all these terrible things were happening in my house, I just waited. But one day …." His voice cracks now, muffling a sob that's swallowed before it's formed. "One day it was my mother. He had been angry all day – something about his wand – and my mother was in his way. He tor –" Malfoy pauses, clenching his eyes shut as he continues, "He tortured her. On the floor of her own home, he tortured her until she begged for mercy. Until she begged for death. And when she did, my father killed her. My father fucking killed her. He killed his wife, the mother of his son. He killed her because of him."

Malfoy stops, his chest heaving in uneven breaths. "And that's when I left." Snarling, he turns towards her, and spits out, "Is that good enough for you, Granger?"

Hermione feels her heart constricting, agonizingly, painfully. She can only imagine what he feels like.

Shaking, she bites her lip so hard that ruby droplets of blood invade her mouth. "I'm sorry," she replies hollowly. "I'm so sorry I made you tell me that." She leans her head back against the tattered cushions, and says, "I suppose that's why you sent us the note as well; to make sure the same thing didn't happen to those children. I'm such an idiot for forcing you to tell me."

"No," he mutters softly, but with an edge of viciousness that takes her aback. "That's not why I sent you the note."

Hermione frowns. "Then …"

He looks at her and barks out a humorless laugh. "I think we've had enough sharing for one day, don't you, Granger?"

Attempting to regain his composure, he stretches and comments casually, "But Potter and Weasley can't know anything about why I defected. I guess there's no way to get them to forget who I was …."

Hermione looks up, a flush in her cheeks. She can't help him with what's in the past, but maybe she can help him with the future. Maybe she can help him gain the trust of her friends. "There's something, but I can't see you agreeing to it."

He scoffs, and a spark of indignation is kindled in his eyes. "Try me."

"Make an Unbreakable Vow with me."

The wind is knocked out of his chest. "What?" he sputters, the pallor of his cheeks glistening in the dim light. "You can't be serious."

She shrugs, and looks away. "I didn't think you could."

He grabs her arm, forcing her to look back at him. "I never said that." Roughly, he stands, yanking her along with him.

For some reason, her skin burns whenever he touches her.

"We'll need a Bonder," he says, his steadfast gaze never leaving hers.

She's light-headed, and beginning to think this is a bad idea, but he's already called Ron and she's standing there, with her hand entwined with his and tingles of strange, new sensation kissing up her spine.

Ron's skeptical, his eyebrows raised and questioning, but he sees the consent in her eyes and, though still faintly astonished, says that he thinks it's a good idea. Maybe the only way Malfoy can gain anyone's trust around here.

His palm is rough in hers, but at the same time, it's oddly warm and comforting.

For some reason, she'd always assumed he'd feel cold.

Ron gingerly pressed the nose of his wand to their linked hands, signaling for them to begin.

Exhaling slowly, Hermione turns and faces Malfoy. She's slightly disconcerted by the earnestness shining in his eyes. "Will you, Draco," she begins, "swear your loyalty to the Order and its mission?"

His voice is low as he replies without hesitation, "I will."

A ribbon of fire, rippling and flickering as it moved, winds around their tangled hands, making her gasp in surprise. She feels a slight pressure in her hand as the hot wire binds Malfoy's hand to hers, but, she's ashamed to admit, it's not altogether unpleasant.

What's happening to her?

Shaking off that dull enjoyable feeling that she can't quite identify, she continues, a tiny tremor in her throat, "And will you, to the best of your ability, protect and support the Order in all its endeavors?"

Again, the same, "I will."

The second tongue of flame braids its way around their hands.

"And will you" – here, she draws a shaky breath and bites her lip – "renounce the Dark Lord, and swear to do whatever it takes to defeat him? Even if it means … if it means …"

"Killing my father?" Malfoy supplies, a stony hardness molding his features. "Yes. Yes I will."

The final strand of brilliant fire sprouts from the wand and, twisting itself with the others, binds their hands together thickly, the conjoined flames glowing radiantly.

It's done.

* * *

><p>A raid, the first one in months, has gone wrong.<p>

Horribly, horribly, wrong.

There are dozens of wounded people pouring into the house, and she can't keep up with them all. Unfamiliar faces, familiar faces, faces that she may know but can't recognize because they've been so terribly disfigured.

The stench of blood is permeating the place, mingling with the stale odor of sweat and skin. She's hyperventilating, her hands filled with potions that she doesn't know where to put, her mind racing, her thoughts tumbling and tripping over each other.

She closes her eyes in despair, feeling like all the hope has been drained from her frail body. She thought she could do this, but maybe she can't. Maybe it's too much.

Maybe she should just give up.

"Granger, breathe." His voice grazes her earlobes as she stands there, bloodied and ragged in the midst of the chaos. He takes the potions from her hands and guides her to a chair in the corner of the room. She sits there rocking, her eyes closed but still seeing. Still seeing the death and destruction and carnage.

Forever seeing.

His marble face, usually so cold and hard, softens at the sight of her like this and, sighing a sigh that rumbles from his chest and passes to hers in a vibration, wraps his arms around her shivering shoulders. He feels strong and warm and she wishes she could stay here forever, curled up in the scent of oak-trees and cheap soap, safe from the world.

Against her spirals of hair caked with dried blood of others, he murmurs, "It'll be okay."

And she believes him.

* * *

><p>Hermione leans back into the sofa, a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other. She's tired; there are purple half-moons ornamenting the hollows under her eyes. But they're so close to finding the diadem and this is no time to sleep.<p>

Beside her, Malfoy sits with a similar tome open in his lap like he has every night for weeks, ever since the raid. He doesn't tell her, but she knows it's because he's worried she'll break down again. She wants to prove him wrong, but, in truth, he's right. His presence is solid and comforting and _there. _

She just wonders why he cares.

Malfoy takes a long swallow of the tea she insistently pressed into his hands a few minutes ago and his face contorts. "Granger, what the hell!" he exclaims, futilely rubbing his lips together in an attempt to get rid of the taste. "You call this tea? This is hot piss!"

She laughs and the sound is dissonant to her. Gently, she takes the cup away from him and the smile lingers on her face as she looks into his eyes. His face is haggard, just like hers, but somehow still beautiful. The dim golden light emanating from the candles highlights his features: his pale, tousled hair, his mouth settled into a drowsy pout, his silver eyes that glitter in the inky darkness.

She's hit with an abrupt realization that pierces her heart like a lightning bolt.

Merlin's beard.

She's fallen in love with Draco Malfoy.

* * *

><p>"What the bloody hell were you playing at, Malfoy?" Hermione spits, her voice trembling with anger.<p>

They're standing in the tiny kitchen, and, although he towers over her, she leans into him and shoves him in the chest roughly. "Have you _completely_ lost your mind?"

He pries her hands from his chest and clasps them in his own. "I haven't, but a good case could be made for you," he retorts calmly, his cool eyes roving her features as she fizzes with fury.

"You blatantly disregarded my instructions not to go seeking out the ambush; you hurt your arm in the last one and I _told _you to stay here and help me with the injured instead fighting…"

"I'm not your bloody puppet, Granger! They needed me; Seamus would have died if I hadn't been there and …"

"Malfoy, you don't even understand. You could have _died_, you could have been killed!" Her eyes are huge, scared, pleading.

Malfoy snorts and roughly shoves off her hands. "Who cares? People die every day, Granger. Every. Single. Fucking. Day. And if I'd died at least I would've helped, at least I would've done something good for someone who deserved it, at least my death would have some significance! Because if I'm shacked up in here, tending to the ill like Florence fucking Nightingale, who the bloody hell cares if I die?"

"I care!" she cries, throwing up her hands in defeat and willing the words back as soon as they fall from her mouth. There are tears, glistening and jewel-like, clinging to her lashes precariously. The words are out now and there's no taking them back. So she pushes on, "Are you happy now? I care, Malfoy. I care. I care about you, and if you died …" The tears are spilling. One by one, they hover, then fall. "If you died, I don't know what I would do." Her breathing is ragged now, and it resonates in the empty space.

His eyes, for the first time, are soft. With understanding, with compassion … with something else, too. "Granger," he murmurs tenderly. With the rough pad of his thumb, he traces the track of a single tear down the curve of her cheek before wiping it away.

His touch feels gloriously terrible to her and she shivers, knowing that she can't undo what she said but she can stop what's about to happen. "Malfoy –" she begins, attempting to introduce rationality into their minds. But it's too late, because he's too close and he's too warm and she loves him too much.

"Shut up," he whispers, a breath away from her lips, before impulsively pressing his mouth against hers, almost desperately.

And she's lost.

Abandoning all pretense of reason, she twists her arms around his neck, kissing him back with a recklessness she didn't know she possessed. He tangles his fingers in her curls, pulling her closer to him as she rakes one hand down his neck, prompting a shiver down his spine.

"I've wanted to do this for so long," he murmurs against her skin as he plants feathery kisses down her the column of her throat, sucking the pulse that he had made rapid with his presence.

Hermione gasps as his mouth collides with hers again, spreading an intense heat throughout her. She presses herself closer to him, arching her back and evoking a low groan from the back of his throat that tumbles into her mouth.

He pulls away first, resting his forehead against hers and tightening his arms around her waist. As she looks up, he leans in for another kiss, a newfound gleam of life brightening his eyes, but she stops him with a hand pressed against his chest. "Draco," she breathes, and his grin is dazzling as she says his name, "I love you."

Abruptly, he pulls away from her and she's cold, colder than she's ever been before. "No," he mutters, clenching his jaw. "Don't do this, Granger …."

Hermione cocks her head, confusion and rejection fogging her mind. "What?"

"This!" he motions between them, emotions that she can't understand passing over his features. "I have _nothing _I can give you. I'm lost, and broken. I'm a Death Eater who couldn't commit to one cause or another, and I will disappoint you. I will hurt you, just like I have everyone in my life. The one thing – the _only thing _– I can do for you is refuse to be with you."

She watches him turn away from her before she curls her wrist around his arm. His eyes snap in surprise as she pulls him back towards her. "No," she whispers, "the one thing you can do for me is be here. Stay with me and don't do anything ridiculous, like jumping into a raid when you're injured. Stay with me and be with me and be happy with me, because I need you, Draco. Please …"

He swallows heavily, looking into her eyes as her touch burns his arm. Stepping closer, he places a gentle kiss in her messy curls. "Okay," he murmurs finally.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

><p>She's tending to the wounded under a small canopy made invisible from the battle-line, bandaging a wound that's oozing pus and thick paste that doesn't even look like blood while her patient's defeated pleas of, "Just let me die!" fall pointlessly on her unhearing ears, when it happens. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Draco fighting a Carrow, who abruptly drops his wand and steps back hurriedly for some reason.<p>

She just has time to frown in puzzlement when the whisper reaches her.

_Voldemort is dead. _

After all these years, after all these plans, after all the research and Horcrux-hunting and battles and raids …. It was finally over.

Jubilantly, she spreads the news to all the injured, to all the hopeless, to all those who had given up on life.

_Voldemort is dead. _

Harry has won, good has triumphed, and the world is once again in balance. After five years of constant war, she feels like she has a new lease on life.

_Voldemort is dead. _

He catches her gaze across the field and she runs towards him, burying herself in his familiar scent. Oak-trees and cheap soap. Security and strength.

"We did it," she whispers against his chest and she can feel him smile into her hair.

"We did it," he agrees, and there's nothing more that needs to be said.

* * *

><p>They're helping transport all the injured people to St. Mungo's in the wake of the battle when she suddenly notices it.<p>

He's taken off his robe, and pushed his sleeves up to his elbow, revealing the dark blemish that would forever mark his forearm.

He used to be ashamed of showing this part of himself to her; the Death-Eater part, the evil part. But they're so comfortable with each other now that he doesn't give the Mark a second thought as he pushes a stretcher towards a Portkey, his defined muscles bunching around it as he does so.

It's just an accidental glance, but what she sees makes her heart feel ten times lighter.

"Draco!" she squeals when he returns, pulling him towards her and forcing him to hold out his arm.

"What are you …" His eyes widen with astonishment, then delight as he watches the Mark fade before his eyes. "I didn't know that would happen," he mumbles, shocked and ecstatic.

She presses an elated kiss to the corner of his mouth. "He's dead. You're free. You're … you're finally free, Draco."

Together, they watch the ugly scar dim, dissolve, and finally ebb out of their lives forever.

As she gathers him into a tight hug, he whispers against her hair, "Marry me, Hermione."

She pulls back, hope and joy and everything good in the world glittering in her eyes. "Yes," she breathes. _"Yes."_

* * *

><p>Her body is shaking and shivering as she grips the edge of the toilet seat with rigid fingers. The putrid stench of vomit and sweat fills the air while she sputters and gags, raking back damp wisps of her hair in between heaves.<p>

Draco's voice carries over from the next room, amused and familiar with her early morning symphony. "Fancy some toast?" he calls out. "I bought marmalade yesterday."

"Go to hell, Malfoy!" she yells as another wave of vomit overcomes her and she groans into the toilet.

He chuckles and leaves the kitchen, debating between leaning against the door or venturing closer to her. His wife in this sort of mood is a dangerous phenomenon, indeed. He decides to fuck it and crouches down beside her, pulling her damp tendrils to the back and rubbing her quaking shoulders.

"This kid better be the cutest baby in the whole damn world," Hermione growls, wiping a dribble of vomit away from her mouth.

Draco grins, stating proudly, "Of course he will be – I'm his father." At his wife's irritable glare, he amends, "Or her."

Mollified, Hermione rises, moving to the sink to splash cold water on her face and rinse her mouth. Draco watches her in the mirror, a small smile dancing on his lips.

"Bloody hell, Hermione," he suddenly blurts, as though a thought has just occurred to him. "I really hope she doesn't get your hair!"

* * *

><p>The pitch-black of the night has morphed into a deep, inky blue when Hermione and Draco finally climb into bed, exhausted from their toddler's enthusiastic games.<p>

"She takes after you," Hermione mutters as she smothers her face in a pillow, allowing her eyes to flutter shut. "I was always a good baby."

"Liar," he snipes back at her, pulling the blanket towards his side. "In addition to being a blanket hog, I'm sure you were the fussiest baby in Britain."

"I was not!" she protests, propping her head up on a pillow to smirk at her husband. "I was calm, I was quiet …"

Draco scoffs. "So you were a fucking boring baby, then."

She slaps him on the chest. "I'm never boring."

Grinning, he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her into a kiss. "No, you're not," he agrees, letting her snuggle against his chest.

They lie together in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and just when Hermione is about to drift off to sleep, his voice cuts through the slumber-mist, jolting her awake.

"Hermione … do you remember, years ago, when you asked me why I sent you that note?"

She looks up at him with drowsy eyes and a tired pout on her lips. "Mhm. Why?" She knows the reason already, but she wants to hear it from him.

He looks down at her, his grey eyes glittering into her amber ones. "It was because of you."

"I know," she murmurs, grinning up at him. "Harry told me ages ago. Remember when you let him use Legilimency on you? He saw your memories, and he knew."

"That bastard …" Draco snarls half-heartedly. "And you devious little minx! You knew all these years and never said anything to me?"

"I never needed to," she replies, confidence underlying her tone. "But you know, there is one thing you've never said it to me."

Draco raises a slender eyebrow. "What?" he queries, though he has a feeling he knows exactly what she's talking about.

Hermione places a palm flat on his chest and whispers, in her weak attempt at flirtation, "You know. Those three words."

"I'm not a mind-reader, Granger!" her husband protests, attempting to stifle his laughter. "You're going to have to spell it out for me."

She huffs in frustration, sliding her hand from his chest down to the blanket. "Forget it, then!"

He smirks at her, and tilts her chin up so her reluctant eyes collide with his fiery ones. "Hermione, I love you," he says for the first time, and the words feel right in his mouth. Softly, he kisses her forehead, smoothening out the wrinkles in her frown. "I have for longer than you know."

Hermione raises her beaming eyes to meet his, snaking her hands around his neck. "I know," she murmurs, satisfied and finally succumbing to sleep, ghosting puffs of warm breath over his skin.

And he smiles, thanking his lucky stars that he loops his 'g's.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: **Okay! That was my Friday night, sitting down and writing this for all you lovely people. *sigh* ... I need to get a life... _

_So, to show your appreciation for my diligence, how about leaving a review? There's a beautiful little button just below this that's just begging for your attention. _

_Hope you enjoyed the story! But let me know even if you didn't! _

_- CandiFloss_


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